1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for searching a position on a recording medium, at which desired information has been recorded, in order to read the desired information in an apparatus for reproducing information recorded on the recording medium, such as a magnetic tape.
2. Related Background Art
A conventional tape recorder has a function to sequentially determine a current position of a tape under drive based on a frequency generator (FG) pulse generated by the rotation of a drive motor and stop the rotation or resume the reproduction when the current postion reaches a desired position.
However, in the prior art function, precision of the position determined is not so high. As an alternative method, a sub-code for indicating an information position is stored on the magnetic tape which records information thereon and the sub-code is searched to precisely determine the recorded position of the desired information so that the information may be read from the determined position.
However, in an apparatus which frequently needs to access a random position such as an electronic file unit using a digital audio tape recorder (DAT), a search time is long and the number of times of searching is high. In the search by the sub-code, since it is necessary to drive the tape at a high speed while the head contacts the tape, both the head and the tape are rapidly worn as the search is repeated.